Laura and Jason's Cute Proposal Video

How we met: I moved out to New York City for grad school in the summer of 2011. I grew up in Downey, CA my entire life and I needed a change of scenery. My roommate and I started going out to a church, and I guess Jason was one of the welcoming ushers. I didn’t notice him at all.

But after a few weeks, my roommate would say things like, “That guy is totally staring at you from across the hall.” I told her to stop being silly, but she said she couldn’t help it because it was too obvious. We eventually got introduced to each other through a mutual friend who was also from Los Angeles, and I found out that Jason had grown up in Burbank, CA!

It was always like a breath of fresh air to meet another Angeleno in the big city. He was such a funny guy and we just somehow clicked. I had the biggest crush on him because even though he was from LA, there was something different about him. He was this older guy with ambition. He had big goals. And he wore fitted shirts!

When he eventually asked me out on our first date, I asked him to meet me at the restaurant by 5pm. When we got there, there was absolutely no one at the restaurant. In fact, the kitchen had just opened so even the servers weren’t prepared for our arrival. As I sat across the table from him, I think I had a thousand butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I didn’t want him to think that I was this little naive girl from the suburbs who didn’t know anything about the “city life”–which was completely true. I wanted to impress him. But before our appetizers had even come out, he was fumbling around the table looking for his fork or something when he managed to spill an entire glass of water on me.It was winter in New York City, and he probably thought he had ruined all chances of a second date.

Something about that, however, made him look so stupid that it was so cute. And this guy, who I thought was this big shot from New York City with his hot career and ironed shirts, just felt like…home. And I remember telling myself at that very moment that I was going to be marrying this guy.

How he asked: I guess he shared the same sentiment that night and he started filming everything. He carried around his camera everywhere for the past two years. I thought it was his hobby. And sometimes I would even make fun of him and say things like, “What the HELL are you going to do with all this footage?!” And he would laugh it off and say, “I don’t know anymore…there’s too much footage!” I honestly thought it was a lost cause.

I didn’t think there would be any way to organize all the video clips because there was just too much. But Jason is the type of guy that makes stuff happen. At the restaurant–which just happened to be completely empty like our first date — he showed me his “incomplete” video and asked me for honest feedback while he quickly ran to the restroom. He had been complaining about a stomach ache the entire car ride so I didn’t think too much of it. As the video comes to an end, the scene shows him coming out of that same bathroom, which he ends up doing in real time to pop the most anticipated question of my life.